"I think the pie is only so big and everyone will feel it a bit," she says.

"[But] I think Bunnings will deal more with retail, and although we obviously like our retail clients, [they're] not our biggest turnover, so we have perhaps a slightly different market."

Ms Bitar has been running the business for around thirty years and says local knowledge can't be underestimated.

"Obviously things are price based but a lot of it is also service based...from my dealings with larger establishments I don't think they will deal as well with the trade as what we do...there's a lot of dependency on our knowledge."

Yvonne Brooke-Anderson, who's owned the Alice Springs Nursery for the past four years, is another business owner who is digging her heels in against the imminent arrival of the hardware giant.

"We're going to stay true to who we are and just continue trading," she says.

"The nursery's been around for 38 years so it would be a sad and sorry day if we pulled stumps."

As for other businesses around town, she says it's likely some will go under.

"I think we'll see a few closures around town which saddens me because Alice is the biggest little town...," she says.

"I think a lot of small businesses do as much as what they can in town with the price of freight and power and water...unfortunately these big guys cut deals with freight and we've just pass it on, unfortunately, to our customers."

Staffing is an issue thats also being questioned by business owners like Brenton Joy.

"How they're going to employ enough people to run the place is beyond me," he says

"...we can't get half a dozen people let alone the 120 people that they need to run the place."

Kaye Eade, Executive Officer of Chamber of Commerce NT Central Oz region agrees it will be a drain.

"Central Australia is very resource poor at the moment, unemployment is only about 1%, so businesses are struggling to get enough workers to run their day to day business," she says.

"Also there is an imminent threat to our local businesses here...so it's not really a win-win, it's sort of a win and a bit of a loss."

Some of the concerns raised were put to Bunnings who were unavailable for an interview, they did however provide the following:

"We operate in regional centres throughout Australia and smaller businesses located close by to our stores continue to thrive. Typically we find that local competitors are fine as our business actually brings more people to the centre."

"Bunnings is an employer of choice and we don't foresee any problems in filling the 100 positions at the Alice Springs store."